It begins, like so many of these episodes, at a club. The four-some is celebrating them all being single at the same time, which is a cause for celebration apparently! The women are all dancing together, while the lively Cuban music plays and all the men stand around watching. I mean, it looks like that, but it isn't pointed out. There was this one time, in Bermuda, when Zac and I went to this after-party dance thing for locals and cruise ship guests. It was fun, I met a few really beautiful young women who danced with me for awhile. Zac was there too, he was enjoying some other young women and dancing and we were having a grand time, BUT. There were dozens of men just standing around watching the ladies dance. It was weird and unnerving. I mean, they were creepers! Just encircling the dance floor and standing on the balcony above. Creepy. Zac was literally the only man dancing, and the women were at ease around him.. you know, cause he wasn't a creepy.
Just saying. I don't go to clubs much or go dancing hardly ever, I have no idea if that was normal. It was really really awful, tbh.
creepy.
ANYWAY. the foursome aren't put off by the creepers watching them dance. They stop at the bar to have a toast to them and life without men. Charlotte resents this and doesn't want to toast to that cause it's bad luck and if she ends up alone, it's all Carrie's fault. Sam reminds her that they are alone, even when they're with men. She goes on, proselytizing about her way of life-- Enjoy life, enjoy men and don't expect them to fill you up-- you know, except when they fill you up (herrherr)
She is interrupted by a very suave looking man with a really nice accent. He says his name is William and he is the owner of the club. He invites her for a dance, but she says it's just the girls tonight. She is happy with being single at this point in the episode. They are shocked that she didn't ditch them for a man. He gives her his card, so they can dance sometime in the future.
Carrie talks to her friends about the photo shoot tomorrow-- it's for the cover New York Magazine and it's called "Single and fabulous!" Stanford got her hooked up with the gig, and at this point in the episode she is more than happy with her single life. So really, one more drink, and then she has to leave, she doesn't want Mr. Jay to yell at her tomorrow. ><
One more drink turned into many, you know since they never go dancing, and Carrie dragged her tired, but single and fabulous ass home at dawn.
She got a coffee drink, sat on her bed with a newspaper, and tried to stay up all morning. She failed. Stanford called her phone and she woke up with the piece of newspaper stuck to her cheek. She's VERY late for her photo shoot. She'll be there in twenty minutes. She's still wearing the clothes that she went dancing in, doesn't do her hair, and gets to the shoot very tired, needing a coffee the size of her head. She's very sorry, jokes she must have lapsed into a coma, but mostly everyone is too pissed at her to laugh. She is directed to sit on a stool in front of a backdrop, to test the lighting. She's smoking a cigarette while the photographer is doing test shots. She looks terrible and exhausted, but is assured that there will be time for make up and hair before the *real* shoot begins.
In the next scene Miranda, Carrie and Charlotte are going for a walk in Central Park. Charlotte is a big runner, and Miranda later trains for the marathon.. Carrie doesn't work out. I don't know how she stays so thin and her skin so tight without some sort of insane regimen... but there she is, smoking on their morning walk through Central Park while Charlotte is pushing them onward, telling them that they aren't walking fast enough to burn off anything. Carrie suggests gossiping to get their heart rates up. A jogger stops to say hi to Miranda-- it's the Sheriff from the Walking Dead, also the jerk from Love, Actually who holds all those signs to Keira Knightly expecting her to leave her husband for him? I hate that guy in that movie. (have I mentioned how much I hate that movie in general?)
Anyway, here, he is an old boyfriend. He seems nice enough, though Miranda is awkward and non-committal in their awkward non-talk. He invites her to call him so they can catch up. Miranda explains to her friends that he is an ophthalmologist that she used to fake orgasms with. They immediately have to stop their walk to talk about why Miranda would bother faking orgasms. The idea that Miranda would fake anything stopped Narrator Carrie cold.
Miranda explains while stretching her hamstrings: "We only slept together twice. The first time I faked it because it was never gonna happen, and the second time I faked it because I faked it the first time." "-oh, Naturally!" Carrie interrupts, Miranda continues, "And I didn't want to fake it again so I just 'forgot' to return his last call."
Charlotte is doing some very stretchy leg stretches behind them. She interjects, "You broke up with an ophthalmologist over that?!"
"Orgasms?!" Miranda has the best look of incredulity on her face, "Major thing in a relationship?"
"Yes," Charlotte answers, "but not the only thing." Carrie and Miranda share a "WTF" look with each other while Charlotte continues: "Orgasms don't send you Valentine's Day cards and they don't hold your hand in a sad movie!" ("Mine do," says Carrie)
"You're seriously advocating faking?" Miranda asks.
"No, but if you really like the guy, what's one little moment of 'ooh oooh' versus spending the night alone?!"
"These are my options?" Miranda rolls her eyes.
"And who's to say that one moment is any more important than when he gets up and pours you a cup of coffee in the morning. Let's go!" Charlotte starts walking briskly again while Miranda and Carrie finish stretching and Miranda says "I'll take an orgasm over a cup of French Drip Colombian any day!" Carrie contributes a joke: "See, for me it's a toss up!"
In the next scene, she's buying more cigarettes since she smoked them all during her work out. She is stopped cold by the magazine hanging in the Newsstand. It's Carrie Bradshaw, dying of embarrassment.. The magazine used the test shots as their cover, and instead of an exclamation point, it is a question mark. So, it's "Single and Fabulous?" And Carrie looks like something that got caught in a drain.
She is angry and humiliated, and talks with her friends about how hostile that punctuation is. Miranda seems to think that she can't sue, and I think that if she kept all the paperwork and correspondence, that she may have a case.. That picture and caption is just humiliating and not something that she was at all OK with when she agreed to be on the magazine cover.
Charlotte starts to read some of the article, It talks about all-night club hopping and how fun it *really* is at forty-- who's out all night? Asks Charlotte. "Who's Forty?" Asks the only forty year-old at the table. "Fuck them! explanation point." Even Charlotte says "fuck them!" Miranda points out that articles like these surface every few years as a cautionary tale to scare young women into marriage. Charlotte continues to read the article, which goes on to talk about how their lives are filled with decoys and distractions to avoid the painful fact that they're completely alone. Miranda snatches the magazine from Charlotte and asks "How is that helping?! This piece of trash has *nothing* to do with us." Sam adds "We are single and Fabulous!" and Charlotte concurs, "Absolutely!"
But Carrie notices that the question mark had leapt right off the page and onto all of them. Because: within a week, Sam had called the club owner for a dance, Miranda had called the ophthalmologist for another go at a few fake orgasms, and Charlotte decided that she should date her neighbor friend, the out of work actor, who fixes things for her. He was planning on moving out of New York to find actor work elsewhere, and Charlotte decided that she couldn't let him get away. She is perfectly OK with faking an entire relationship, I guess.
The question du jour is of course "Is it better to fake it than be alone?"
Carrie hosts a small party at her house-- just Miranda and Sam. She's tense since she's quit smoking since the cover. They're watching a movie and Miranda scorns the woman who begins coming as soon as the man climbs on top of her. No wonder men are so clueless! Pop Culture would have them believe there isn't more work involved.
Sam asks if the guy she's faking it with is that bad in bed, and Miranda softens and says that he's not, but she's not really willing to teach him.
"What's the big mystery! It's my clitoris, not the sphinx!"
"I think you just found the title of your autobiography."
And a few quips later... "The other night he told me that he loves that I can come while he's fucking me, how can he actually believe that that's all it takes?" And Carrie yells at her "BECAUSE YOU'RE FAKING IT"
Carrie asks why, and Miranda hems and haws about his feelings. (read: EMOTIONAL LABOR)
Sam escapes to go share a dance and a sex with that club owner. She flounces with the line "by the way he dances, I'm sure I won't have to fake anything." At the club, he's talking with her, using "we" a lot. It is mildly annoying, but before long she let's the "we" wash over her. She talks on the phone later with Carrie about how "we're" spending the Summer in the Hamptons. "Oh, he's a 'we' guy?" "So! He's a 'we' guy!?"
Miranda decides not to fake it with the ophthalmologist. The ophthalmologist doesn't notice. He just comes in her and then asks if she came. It's RUDE. Miranda explains that she didn't come, that she never came ever with him. He's confused, asks if she has a problem where she can't come.. Miranda is offended. "how do you know that all the women you've slept with haven't been faking since you didn't know that I was faking." She's got a point. He is completely baffled and hurt.
He seems eager enough to rectify it. He's no charity case, he runs the marathon for Christ sake. Miranda asks if he knows where her clitoris is, and he says yes. And she says that it's about two inches from where he thinks it is. Again, he is shocked, so she tells him to relax, that she'll teach him.
Meanwhile, Charlotte is faking the relationship with the out of work actor. She's got him doing some wiring, plumbing, and assorted other things. She calls him honey, and he kisses her back.. but.. it is just wrong. Carrie reminds her that she can't create a relationship with a guy just because he can caulk your tub! Yes you can! Charlotte insists.
Carrie is walking home, narrator Carrie is getting all worked up. When did everyone start faking everything? And why was being single the worst thing that can happen to a person? Would Manhattan restaurants soon be divided into "single" "non-single?" That is the start of a 4-year-in-the-making-joke: In the middle of Season 5, Carrie stops in to a little Deli hoping for some Matzo ball soup and is greeted with a guy screaming "Singles at the counter!" :p
She is buying cigarettes. She can't quit. Narrator Carrie is still spinning about people faking, and wonders if maybe she was the one faking. Maybe she was faking being happy being single. Then she reads the face of the man who sells her her cigarettes. For some reason she see's Pity. I don't see it, I think she's just defensive because her magazine cover is right there. Poor Carrie.
She decides that she is going to be single and fabulous, end her break from society, and actually go out with her friend, Stanford.
Meanwhile, Samantha is out, waiting in a restaurant for "we" William. He stands her up. He used a pretense of a future to get what he wanted in the present. She waits about as long as it takes her to drink a glass and a half of red wine and then cries to a busboy who offers to take her home. She doesn't want to, and can't fake it anymore. She was stood up and that's the truth.
Back at the club with Carrie, she gets good and drunk and goes home with the only straight guy in the whole club. He has a fabulous convertible, but needs to stop at a newsstand for smokes. He brings back her magazine. "is this you?" Carrie is smacked back to reality. Is this her? She leaves him, she can't sleep with him to validate her life.
It takes a few more weeks, but Charlotte and her fake boyfriend end up double faking a break up. He is bored with New York and wants to leave, and she doesn't want to keep him because she finally realizes that she can't fake an entire relationship, intimacy, or her feelings. Love doesn't work like that. They never actually say any of this. It is actually kind of startling when you think about it. Charlotte realizes that she doesn't have to rely on men's affection to get things fixed. She can pay them.
It doesn't go well for Miranda and the ophthalmologist. They are going at it, him asking a million times if this is right, if that feels good. Miranda can't really get it up and ends up faking one more orgasm before "forgetting" to return his last call.
The end of the episode is Carrie sitting outside at a Cafe. Just her. Instead of running away from the idea of a life alone, she better sit down and take her fear to lunch. No books, no distractions. Just her and a glass of wine. Which apparently is her lunch now. ><
Overall a good, solid episode. I enjoy the idea of slapping women who fake orgasms. It just isn't a good idea and reeks of that Emotional Labor stuff. One should never have to fake anything in a relationship. I really like how that lesson is just hammered in by the end of the episode. Some truths are really fucking hard to handle, especially if society will judge you harshly for them.. but it is worth accepting yourself how you are: no books, no distractions, just alcohol for lunch.
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